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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978296">If I Don't Die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemysHomunculi/pseuds/Katrenbug'>Katrenbug (AlchemysHomunculi)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unsub | Unknown Subject</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:28:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemysHomunculi/pseuds/Katrenbug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>One hundred people have mysteriously been taken overnight in Washington D.C. without any eyewitnesses or camera recordings. The BAU is frantic to catch the unsub, or rather unsubs, fast especially since one of their own is apart of the missing. </p><p>For Dr. Spencer Reid, being inside of the world's smallest cell with another captive isn’t exactly the best situation to be in while trying to solve a case. All he can really do is bide his time and try to convince his pessimistic cellmate that they’re not inevitably going to die (even if she was statistically right).</p><p>Update: I Fixed The Chapter Order</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/William LaMontagne Jr., Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is the first time writing for Criminal Minds. Usually, I only write stuff for video games and anime but I really love this show. I haven't seen every episode but I'm going through them every day so I apologize if I get anything wrong. I'm going to do my best to do these characters justice. I appreciate any critique/comments. Thank You!</p><p>Also, this is a prologue, chapters after this will be much longer. I just wanted to get this out now because I'm super excited. I'll be updating soon :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Prologue</p>
<p>JJ knew something was horribly wrong when the first of many calls interrupted her sleep. She immediately sat up from the pillows with wide eyes. It was strange to have that reaction when nothing had happened before. But from the moment she left the office there had been this aching pain sitting within her chest, some would call it women’s intuition especially since she was completely right to feel that way.</p>
<p>She was already changing clothes when she answered. The I.D. said it was Hotch.</p>
<p>“Hotch what’s wrong?” In the background, she could hear that he wasn’t home. There was a familiar noise in the background coupled with the obvious fact that he was moving made her guess that he was at the bureau.</p>
<p>“I need you to come to the office immediately. Garcia and Morgan are already on their way and it’s important that you’re careful. Do not stop for any reason and call me the moment you’ve pulled up.” Her boss had always been a serious man who never really spoke with an air of causality that Garcia usually had. But the way he sounded now was reserved for those moments in the case where someone’s life was hanging in the balance with literally seconds to go.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand, has something happened.” She heard shuffling within Henry’s room as she passed by it. She nearly turned around as to check on him.</p>
<p>“One hundred people have just disappeared in D.C.” Her eyebrows shot up at the number. How the hell does that happen in only one night.</p>
<p>“Disappeared? How?” She threw her bag around her shoulder and nearly jumped into her shoes.</p>
<p>“We’re not sure. Calls have been flooding the emergency line. Friends and family of the victims are reporting that strange messages have been appearing in their emails.” Some other phone was ringing in the background.</p>
<p>“I’m on my way.”</p>
<p>“There’s one more thing you need to know.” She stopped at the edge of her door, that feeling coming to an intense throbbing. “It appears that Reid has been taken too.”</p>
<p>She nearly doubled over.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>JJ had been shaking on the drive over. She thought about stopping and pulling over a few times, just a moment to breath, but ended up not. She felt more stable upon arriving and finally being able to see the rest of her team. Even if they were a bit of a frantic mess. By the time she had made it upstairs to the round table she realized that everyone else had already gotten there.</p><p>Morgan had his head in his hands, both tired and frustrated while Prentiss sat at the edge of her seat. Rossi and Hotch seemed the most collected out of the bunch of them but underneath the exterior she could tell that they were feeling a similar sensation to the rest.</p><p>Garcia, who was standing up and bouncing slightly on her toes, immediately began the debrief the second JJ sat down.</p><p>“Tell me what’s going on baby girl.” Morgan sat a bit upright as they all watched the screen flicker to life. The usually cheery and colorful woman took a deep breath before beginning.</p><p>“Between twelve and three am calls started pouring into the police about missing persons. It started out as mostly a handful from parents who realized that their kids weren’t responding but after the first hour text messages and emails had started appearing from the victims contact addresses.”</p><p>There was a series of pictures laid out like a collage, each one of them having been taken from various peoples phones. A lot of the text messages had contact names that ranged from ‘Clark K.’ to ‘mom’ to ‘Hubby (insert heart emojis)’. What stuck out to JJ was that these shots showed that the messages only contained a photo followed by a typed number.</p><p>“As you can see all of these photos were taken of the victims themselves from behind, about only a few feet away from them.” The images reminded JJ of those Instagram posts with the girlfriends who had their partners take pictures of them as they held their hand and walked towards something like a beach. Instead of smiles and comforted handholding there was just a person being watched.</p><p>Something was off though. At first it seemed as if the people in those photos were walking themselves and were unaware of who was behind them. But then she was reminded that these photos had been taken with the victims phones. It was this that had her realize that none of these people had been walking upon being photographed. Each one was somewhat slouched over and was taken with the victim being in front of a wall, a poll, or a parked car.</p><p>These people were being propped up as the unsub took photos of their unconscious bodies.</p><p>“What’s with the numbers?” This time it was Rossi who spoke.</p><p>“Not entirely sure but after comparing them to the other messages we think that it’s the order in which each person was taken. The highest number so far as been one hundred and only numbers thirty-two, fifty-eight, twenty-six, and forty-nine have yet to be seen on these messages which probably means that whoever received these messages have yet to look at them.”</p><p>“There doesn’t appear to be any wounds but given we’re only looking at the back that doesn’t mean they weren’t hurt or killed in the process.” JJ felt her stomach churn at the thought that these numbers we’re in reference to people the unsub (or unsubs) had killed rather than just kidnapped.</p><p>“Police that have been dispatched to these locations have yet to report any signs of a struggle or blood loss so whatever happened must have been done quick.” Garcia’s arm was shaking and the remote in her hand appeared to have become a sort of stress ball.</p><p>“Aren’t there any surveillance footage of the attacks?” Morgan’s tone of voice seemed to unhinge Garcia a bit and she shut her eyes tightly for a moment.</p><p>“That’s just the thing, right now, there isn’t.”</p><p>“That’s not possible. Not with so many people.” Prentiss’s frustration seemed to be boiling over, rivaling Morgan’s.</p><p>“Whoever did all this seems to know exactly how to find blind spots.” She clicked the remote and the messages turned into screencaps of various store surveillance footages. They all had one person within the frame at some sort of distance. “All of these cameras show the last footage of the victims before they left the frame and walked into an area that wasn’t being recorded.”</p><p>“What about cars?” Hotch had his hand in his chin upon asking the question. “Are there any that keep showing up?” Garcia nodded.</p><p>“A couple do but right now the ones we’ve been able to look up seemed to have been reported stolen months ago.” JJ groaned at this. This wasn’t going to be easy and she doubted anyone on the team would be getting more than a few hours sleep between now and the moment they knew everyone was safe.</p><p>A pause filled the air and she realized it was because the topic was going to switch to the one they dreaded the most.</p><p>“What about Spencer?” JJ spoke softly, looking at Hotch as she did so.</p><p>He didn’t say anything and instead directed his attention towards Morgan. The muscled man averted eye contact with all of them as he took out his phone and pushed onto the table and towards her in a somewhat aggressive fashion. Hesitantly she picked it up and Prentiss leaned in to see as well.</p><p>There, in a photo with the flash on, was the back of Spencer’s head against the backdrop of a brick wall. He looked like that character in the Blair Witch Project that was forced to stand and stare in corner of a room. Below the photo was just one message highlighted in a green text bubble.</p><p>
  <em>86</em>
</p><p>. . .</p><p> </p><p>To an outsider, Reid had seemed to have been sleeping peacefully. His chest expanded with steady breaths despite the lack of any bedding, pillows, or blankets. His head rested on his left hand while his body curled up in the claustrophobic space. An echo of someone stepping around outside didn’t wake him up. What did was the sudden metal ringing out into his ears. What had been a divider resting between the two cells now was jerked up. The two cells turned into one.</p><p>Spencer’s eyes stung as he rapidly opened them up. Surprised, he accidentally hit the top of his head against cement when attempting to stand. It took more than a few moments for him to stabilize and take in his surroundings. In general, he was lightheaded and nauseous, his body feeling like it was swaying slightly. Despite the lack of natural light, the whole cell was annoyingly bright. An overhead bulb encased in glass was ingrained in the middle of the ceiling.</p><p>In this sweep, for some reason, it was the girl directly in front of him that he noticed last. Her outstretched feet were only half a foot away from his own. Both of them were sitting upright but she, unlike him, was far more slouched back. Her light green eyes were bloodshot red and tired. The rest of her face seemed normal though for someone naturally pale and petite. It was obvious that she was much shorter than him, definitely only a few inches above five feet. The clothes she wore didn’t stand out that much. Just a maroon sweater and boot cut jeans paired with black flats.</p><p>He guessed that she had been awake longer than him as she wasn’t wincing at the light or the aches in her body. Her eyebrows were heightened on her face, surprise evident in the way her mouth opened.</p><p>“Uh . . .hey?” She rose her left hand slightly from it’s place on her leg, giving the worlds laziest wave. “You, uh, okay?” She pointed slightly at him and Spencer realized that he was probably in worse shape than her.</p><p>“Yeah, I . . .I’m fine.” He raked a hand through his curled hair. A hint of embarrassment surged through his body as he realized how much of a mess he must have looked like. “Are you?”</p><p>She snorted, looking away from him with a half-smile.</p><p>“Just peachy.”</p><p>For once in his life, Spencer felt that he had more questions than answers. His mind was racing, pounding against the cement of the room, and trying to demand some sort of understanding. Starting with how the hell he got here.</p><p>“You wouldn’t happen to know where we are?” She looked back up at him, still half-smiling with a body that looked far too relaxed.</p><p>“Nope,” she said with a pop of her mouth. “I don’t even remember getting here.”</p><p>“Yeah I don’t either.” He sat up straighter, gaze falling onto everything and always landing back at her. “I remember walking back after meeting a friend from work but that’s about it. I don’t even think I even got farther than 18<sup>th</sup> street.”</p><p>“Huh, I was around there too.” She looked a little more interested now. Why she seemed like she wasn’t before was another question he would eventually find the answer too. “I have an apartment with my friend in the outskirts between D.C. and Alexandria, we were heading to Pitchers for drinks but we got separated when she crossed the street to use an atm.”</p><p>He recalled the bar she was talking about. He had seen it in passing as well as it being mentioned in a few articles online. It was notable for being a gay bar, one that had separate sections for women to have their own place to mingle. She was probably queer, or at least her friend was, given the amount of makeup she was using. Her eyeliner was thick and long and fake lashes somehow still hung proudly on her eyelids. All signs pointed to her looking to catch someone’s eye. Even the ordinary clothes, appropriate for the cold weather, were snug on her body. The sweater itself had a rather deep neckline. He wondered what she would have been wearing had it been warmer.</p><p>“What’s your name?” He jumped slightly, having been snapped out of his thoughts.</p><p>“Dr. Spencer Reid,” he smiled a little bit at the impressed look she gave him. “And yours?”</p><p>“Paige Thompson.” She reached her hand out and he swallowed uncomfortably, staring at her hand like it was an unwanted birthday present.</p><p>She let it hang there for a second before letting it fall back on her leg. He couldn’t help but feel bad at the look of dejection that crossed her face.</p><p>“Sorry just . . . not a big fan of handshakes.” Paige nodded as if she understood.  </p><p>“I get it, I have to a lot at work so it’s become a habit.” She stared off a bit, a memory playing in the back of her head. Whatever it was caused her to laugh slightly.</p><p>“Oh, where do you work?” It was a little funny, he thought, to have this type of conversation given the circumstances.</p><p>“I work at an animal shelter, it’s the one on New York Ave. I greet potential adoptees before letting them into the rooms and getting paperwork processed.” He liked that she seemed to perk up. Well, as well someone could in a kidnapping situation.</p><p>“That must be nice, being around animals all day.” She nodded, eyes staring towards her own hands.</p><p>“What about you?” Paige cocked her head as she eyed him. “You seem like the professor type.”</p><p>“Actually I work for the FBI in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.” Now she really looked shocked.</p><p>“Wow that’s . . . pretty dang cool.” Her gaze went up to the ceiling. “Wish I had an interesting job like that.”</p><p>He didn’t say it but if she knew how often he worked with stuff like this, she wouldn’t.</p><p>           </p><p>           </p><p>           </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So writing for Reid is like, really hard. I'm doing my best to keep true to his character but it would certainly be easier If I knew more about psychology outside of what I see through the show. Too bad I ended up majoring in communications lol.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The team was nearly suffocated by the sheer amount of people that had gathered into the Metropolitan Police Department that morning. Families were attempting to wave down anyone who looked to be an officer, getting up into their faces, and begging for some help. It took a good minute or two to get out of the crowd and into a secluded area with a few individuals from the department. During introductions, the group outside were eventually broken up into rooms awaiting questioning. JJ and Prentiss were the first up.</p><p>“Mrs. Fuller, my name is Agent Emily Prentiss and this is my partner Agent Jennifer Jareau.” The woman sitting before them stood up a bit as they entered the room. The woman herself was in her early fifties with graying red hair that came down to her waist. “We understand that your son never came home last night.”</p><p>The woman nodded, dabbing at the edges of her eyes with the back of her hand.</p><p>“Y-yes,” she coughed, throat dry from hyperventilating earlier. “His name is Gregory. He texted me after his shift that he was on his way home. H-He works as a busser at The Games Sports Pub.” Mrs. Fuller had her phone clasped between both of her hands in the middle of the table. She must had been staring at it for hours since getting the message from the unsub. There were obvious print marks smudged haphazardly on the screen.</p><p>“And you said you received a strange message from his phone thirty minutes after he was supposed to have been home?” In response, Mrs. Fuller turned her own screen on and passed it to Prentiss.</p><p>The contact name was simply ‘Greg’ with the two small, pink heart emoji next to it. The last message between the two of them was him writing ‘<em>Just got off of work.</em>’ And her saying ‘<em>Ok love you!</em>’.</p><p>Then, timestamped at 12:47 am, was the expected photo. Gregory, a senior in high school, was slouched in front of a street pole, he looked normal from the pictures perspective. Nothing that looked like a struggle had occurred. The boy himself wasn’t overly muscular or scrawny. He wasn’t an easy target depending on who took him. One would think that he would have been somewhat tousled from a resulting fight.</p><p>Below it was the number ‘<em>1’</em>.</p><p>“Did your son have any sort of enemies, whether in or out of school?” JJ took her eyes off of the phone to look at the mother.</p><p>She shook her head rapidly.</p><p>“No, No, Greg has always been a sweet boy to everyone he meets. When he’s not working or in class he’s helping coach the high schools unified tennis and bocci ball team.” She smiled, tears glossing over her hazel eyes. “He wants to be a special ed teacher you know.” Both agents could tell that she was walking on a thin line now between falling into a second breakdown.</p><p>“Was he acting out of the ordinary leading up to last night?” JJ’s voice softened a bit.</p><p>“No,” she started sniffling. “He was excited to go into work that night. Apparently they were going to have a trivia.”</p><p>The sniffling escalated and the only things the two agents were able to get from Mrs. Fuller afterwards was that she often chastised her son for taking the shorter, and more dangerous, route home. He was one of those kids who never feared going out at night. Unlike his sister who always took ubers and caried a canister of pepper spray in her purse at all times.</p><p>By noon, the team came back together having gone through half of the victims families. Some questioning lasted up until half an hour whereas others barely lasted ten minutes.</p><p>“So,” Rossi drawled out as he sat down amongst the group. “What are we all thinking?”</p><p>“I’m thinking this shouldn’t be possible.” It was Morgan who spoke first. He put his hands on the back of an empty chair and leaned over it, stretching slightly. “A couple people disappearing, ok that can happen, but one-hundred fucking people all in one night.” He shook his head.</p><p>“There’s definitely more than one or two unsubs involved in this, a lot of these messages overlap at similar times and in different places. There would have to be teams working together to get this all done.” Prentiss was looking at Rossi and Hotch as she wrote a small note down.</p><p>“The question is how many?” The older Italian man leaned back in his seat, staring up at the celling. “And where the hell are they holding all these people.”</p><p>“I mean there’s the chance that they’re keeping everyone separated.” JJ nodded at this; it would make it easier to control so many if they weren’t all in one place. Maybe they had groups of ten to twenty in separate locations.</p><p>“I also haven’t noticed any similarities between the victims.” The group looked at Prentiss. “They’re all from different ages, races, genders, and socioeconomic status’.”</p><p>“At this point it feels as if these people were chosen based upon opportunity.” JJ couldn’t help but feel that, as likely as it was, that there was certainly more to it than just random chance. To think that Spencer was gone just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.</p><p>“There’s always the possibility that some of them were chosen specifically.” Morgan pointed out. “And the rest of them could just be there to make a point.” Would Reid be part of those people? He was a part of the FBI and taking a federal agent without much of a fight was something worth boasting about.</p><p>“And the point is that they can take as many people as they want without even getting noticed.” JJ’s hands clenched into balls at her side as she imagined how proud these unsubs must feel about themselves right now.</p><p>“For now we should try and look for places they could be hiding,” said Hotch. “Garcia I want you to try and find any striking similarities among some of the victims. This could include criminal records or job occupations.”</p><p>“Already on it.”</p><p>. . .</p><p>“You wouldn’t happen to have any tissues on you?” Paige was shifting in her spot, fingers grazing the sides of her face. “My makeup is getting pretty oily and gross.”</p><p>Before she could instinctively rub the end of her sleave at her checks, Spencer went into his pants pocket and fished out a little plastic thing of tissues. While not sick, it helped having some with him when it came to walking around the city. There were somethings that he honestly rather not touch with his hands as far as the metro went.</p><p>“Oh here.” He reached it out towards her and she snatched it up pretty quick. She wasn’t all that graceful about taking it off. Choosing to rub at it as if she were cleaning dishes. He watched the paper turn tan before she took another one to try and take the eyeliner and eyeshadow off. She wetted it a bit with her lips before going back a second time to rub off the excess black that was stuck around the edges of her eyes were they had extended into a wing.</p><p>Despite her best, a smokey shadow still remained. He thought about telling her that there was still much there but decided against it. She shouldn’t have to worry about something as trivial as eyeliner right now. Apparently, as he read once, women put a lot of effort into eye makeup because making the eye appear larger through liner and shadow somehow correlated to them appearing more youthful. Spencer could tell she had put a lot of time into it last night.</p><p>“Thanks,” she chucked the rest of them onto his lap. “I kept going back and forth on whether or not I should keep it on.” She played with the fake lashes between her fingers, closing her eyes as she continued. “But since I’m going to die here, I rather look like myself than a sweaty hooker.”</p><p>Spencer didn’t join her in laughter. Hesitantly he replied.</p><p>“You think you’re going to die?” It wasn’t illogical to fear death in a kidnapping situation but usually people said, ‘if I’m going to die’ rather than ‘since I’m going to die’.</p><p>“Honestly,” she looked at him. “Yes, I do.” There was no evidence of extreme devastation or fear on her face. Just some sort of strange acceptance. As if she had already gone through the five stages of grief within hours. The effects of being taken hostage on the human mind did include hopelessness and dissociation (though typically after the fact) but seeing her so calm about it was unnerving.</p><p>He had to be careful about his choice of words.</p><p>“I mean, we don’t even know why we’re here yet.” That was a good point, right? For all either of them knew, the unsubs had no interest in killing them. Maybe it was ransom of some sort? But that did beg the question as to why she was taken as well?</p><p>“True, but still.” She paused. “Nothing about this <em>situation </em>makes me feel hopeful about what’s going to happen next.”</p><p>“You seem oddly okay about all of this.” He didn’t necessarily mean to come off so suspicious but the way she looked at Reid said that she was somewhat offended by it.</p><p>“No point in crying about.” He wondered if she was crying before. “Besides wouldn’t they like that? You work with these type of people all the time, don’t they enjoy watching girls like me beg for their lives?”</p><p>“Well yes, people who suffer from severe sexual sadism do gain most of their pleasure from watching their victims reactions to fear more than just the intensity of pain they deliver.” Wait, that wasn’t exactly the best way to reassure someone. “But, uh, in kidnapping situations it’s more likely that money is the motivation for doing so. Really, only around one percent of the US population have severe sadist tendencies so it’s more likely we’re here for ransom.” It was more between one <em>and </em>two percent but she didn’t need to know that.</p><p>“If they wanted ransom money wouldn’t they have taken someone who comes from a well-off family?” Paige brought her legs to her chest, putting more of a distance between her and Spencer. “My parents aren’t poor but it’s not like I’m some walking pot of gold.”</p><p>“On the contrary, with the increase in advanced security measures it’s become much harder to take high-net-worth individuals, so taking someone who falls more into middle to upper middle-class range would be better overall.”</p><p> Perfect, he thought. Though it was only a flicker, Spencer could see a little bit of reassurance in her expression.</p><p>But that flicker was gone when the echo of feet walking towards them rang within their little cell.</p>
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